


The Beach

by TheNightbloodSolution



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, and i was in a 'loving nathan miller' mood, basically just a nathan miller introspection piece because i can
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:08:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25248184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNightbloodSolution/pseuds/TheNightbloodSolution
Summary: Nathan Miller dreams of the beach.
Relationships: Bryan/Nathan Miller, Eric Jackson/Nathan Miller
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	The Beach

Nathan Miller dreams of the beach.

If he said he’d always dreamed of the beach, that’d be a lie.

Back in space, when his days were made up of pinching things from unsuspecting victims in Alpha Station, sticking it to the Man, who just happened to be his father, and sneaking away to kiss his boyfriend in a janitor’s closet, the beach was the furthest thing from his mind. He’d never seen past the thrill of taking something just for the fun of it, for the rebellion.

The day he gets locked up and gives Bryan one last kiss, he still doesn’t dream of any beach, because he’ll surely die in space, in a crummy, old cafeteria with ninety other delinquent children. He’ll die next to that guy who used to smoke weed and skip Earth Skills or that other kid who won’t shut up about plants.

And then he gets on the ground and sees green, green Earth. He scoffs at Jaha on the television screen, saying they’re the hope of the Ark. And he _still_ doesn’t dream of any beach. How could he see past the miles of trees surrounding him, the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen?

Until the trees aren’t so beautiful anymore, because they’re soaked with blood. Delinquent blood, grounder blood, surely some of his own mixed up in there too. He clutches his gun, marches away from the home they’ve built out of an old, crappy dropship, and for the very first time, he dreams of the beach.

He’s going to surfing.

Ride the waves, like they did in old timey movies. He doesn’t know where he’ll get a board, but maybe he can find a weird rock that’ll do the trick, or use some of the materials from the dropship to put something together. Monty and his giant brain could probably be of help crafting something like that. He doesn’t know how to swim yet, but surely when he reaches the beach, he’ll learn quickly. (He doesn’t make it. Drew gets axed in the face before they even make it a hundred yards outside camp.)

Waking up to sterile white, the beach is somehow still fresh in Nate’s mind. He thinks the white room might be heaven at first, but he figures heaven is some beachy paradise, so instead this must be hell. Purgatory, maybe. Terrible men in suits force him out of his holding cell as he struggles, pushing and shoving, but too malnourished to get any traction. Then, the men help him. Give him clothes. Point him toward a shower, food, his friends. It’s not hell. It’s Mount Weather.

The beach leaves his mind for a while there, because as much as Miller wants to dig his toes into the sand, like Jasper keeps saying, it’s safe here. He’s clean, his friends are here, most of them at least, and he’s not getting axed in the face, so hey, that’s an improvement.

Clarke leaves. Harper goes missing. Monty goes too. Maya admits Mount Weather is a death trap. The beach is back in his mind. What if they had made it, just eighty-two delinquents on their own? Would he be surfing now? Would they build huts on the beach? Monty and Jasper would surely share a hut, maybe he’d bunk with them and Jasper would make more of that moonshine to go around. The younger kids would build sand castles on the beach. Bellamy and Clarke would delegate the chores like the parents they are. Bellamy, who he hasn’t seen since the dropship door closed. He hasn’t seen Octavia either for that matter. The beach sounds great right now.

A lot of things happen at once, then nothing happens for a while. He finds his dad, Clarke leaves, Arkadia is established, and he’s put on the _guard_. Him, Nathan Miller. Thief extraordinaire, self-proclaimed chaos kid. Then, he gets three months of peace. He guards the gates and holds his gun, properly now. He chats with Bellamy and jokes with Monty and keeps Jasper breathing.

He doesn’t yearn for the beach the way he used too. He has peace right here in Arkadia, he has his dad back, and that’s enough. Or he thinks it is, until he learns Bryan is alive, and suddenly it’s nowhere near enough. He deserves his happy ending on a beach, riding the waves while Bryan waves to him from the sand. Or a farmhouse by a lake where they raise chickens together, whatever works.

As they overthrow a corrupt government, he thinks maybe Harper can come live with them on the beach. They’ll all retire from the crazy bullshit that goes on at Arkadia and build a beach house. Can you raise chickens on the beach? He doesn’t see why not. He doesn’t know where they’ll get them, but in his mind, he, Bryan, and Harper all lay on the beach sipping on those little coconuts with the straws, again like he’s seen in the movies. Harper surfs with him, but laying on the beach is more Bryan’s speed. He gets to stare at that little gap tooth Bryan has and his quirky smile all day long. Harper’s laugh rings in his ears. He tells spooky stories by the fire at night and Bryan shivers in his arms. When Pike is gone, that’ll be the life.

It doesn’t come to fruition. He gets to a sort of beach, on Becca’s island, but it isn’t the one he dreamed of and Bryan is nowhere to be found. Murphy walks next to him, hand in hand with Emori, and Miller can’t help a bit of jealousy that creeps in. How is Murphy more deserving of that than him? He’s outrunning the end of the world, and he doesn’t even have anyone to hold his damn hand.

Somewhere in the bunker, he stops dreaming of the beach. It’s hard to dream when there’s no hope. He doesn’t think far beyond three things: gripping his gun, making sure Jacks is safe, and loyalty to Blodreina.

He goes numb, in many senses. Seeing his old friends doesn’t bring back old emotions, because he’s not who he was when the world ended. He’s seen things, done things, aided in things, he never could have dreamed would be necessary. When he was on the Ark, he thought he was a criminal, a delinquent, a rebel. But stealing was nothing to the horrors he’d seen in the bunker. To the horror he’d become.

“For Blodreina!” He screams before leading the desert march. That sand they trudged through might have once reminded him of the beach. Not anymore.

He cries, the first time in a long time before going into cryo. Maybe the forceful sleep is aptly named. He cries for what he’s done, who he’s lost. Thinks of his dad, of Bryan, of the countless chickens he never got to own. Jackson kisses him on the forehead before the cryo screen slips into place.

His first real beach experience is spiritual. Murphy is the first to run in the water, dragging Emori with. Jackson is still yelling, but Miller’s gun is already on the ground and he’s in the water before he can even consider the cold chilling his skin. For a planet with two suns, the chill of the water stings Miller right to his bones. Everything is crystalline blue, and he thinks it might be prettier than any shade of green he ever saw on Earth. He smiles at Clarke, a sidelong, wistful smile that only the two of them can understand. Eventually, he persuades Jackson to get in. He kisses Jackson under the hot beat of the sun, with the cold water sloshing at his back, a mix of temperate sensations he can’t quite understand, and yeah, he thinks he could retire here. Right on the beach, under the dual suns.

Only days later, Sanctum is no longer in his good graces. Clarke is body-snatched and Kane is killed and Murphy is a god now, somehow, Jackson won’t speak to him, and then Clarke is back, but Bellamy is gone, and he _fucking hates it here_ , he doesn’t care how good the beaches are.

Ice planet, no beach. Bardo, just cults, no beach. Friends gone, still no beach. Jackson god knows where, and Miller is going to die on some bullshit planet without a beach.

When he learns that Bellamy is gone, people flash through his head. Monroe, Monty, Harper, Jasper, Kane, Abby, Bryan. Just another one on the list, and surely Miller is next, but…

But if he’s not, he needs to make it back to Sanctum. He’ll drag Clarke with him if he has to. They’ll get out of the city, and he and Jackson are _finally_ getting that house on a beach. He’s done fighting. He thought he’d been surviving for the past six years. Or hundreds of years, who knows? But he hadn’t been surviving, he’d been pushing, fighting. He looks at the gun in his hand still, an implement of war that somehow hadn’t escaped his grasp since he landed on Earth.

If he lives through this, this one last adventure, he’s going back to the beach.

He’s going to go surfing.

**Author's Note:**

> I love Miller, my boy, and seeing Jarod's interview about how underused Miller was made me... much sad. I kind of just started to think of Miller's journey through the 100 and ended up writing this. It's probably not coherent, but *shrug emoji* here it is


End file.
